It's Friday night (almost Saturday morning) and it's been a while since I've shared some of the music I'm listening to. Just a band is not really a discovery, as I've been a fan for some time now, since I discovered the cool music videos of their debut album. This song, Usinibore, is the first single of their new album "82" released last October. Daft Punk anyone?
I had heard lots of good things about the Kenyan house/funk band Just a band a while back (namely on Afromusing), but hadn't really checked their music out and somehow managed to forget about it. Now the great African Digital Art has reminded me to check them out. They are known not only for their debut album Scratch To Reveal that came out last year, but also for their music videos. Not only they write and record all their songs, but they also make their own music videos, which often include animation and illustration. And after watching the ones available in their YouTube channel, I have to say I love both their music and their creative videos.
Here's the first one they released which caused quite an impression, titled Iwinyo Piny -that's the other thing you have to love about them, they mostly sing in Swahili in spite of making very non-traditional Kenyan music.
Probably my favorite song as well as the video, which has a couple of puppets as protagonists is this one, titled Hey:
And although this one is not an animation but has real actors, the song has a lovely, mellow ambiance tune. The title is If I could:
If by now you like Just a Band as much as I do, I recommend you check out their fictional bio and, of course, their blog. And as a bonus, read Afromusing's interview with Just a Band that she posted a year ago. The first part is here and the second one here.
